March | 2026 | Dragons of Lancasm

I was given a set of BattleTech mechs, which were sprayed white months ago and have been sitting on my shelf while I finished sets of board game figures.

Having cleared Descent, I thought these would be a nice change. On average they stand 50mm high, so much bigger than the 25-30mm fantasy figures I usually end up painting. Plus, BattleTech is not fantasy!

I got one completed over the weekend – in between a fair amount of gaming (PC and tabletop) and reading some of Stephen Donaldson’s Gap series. (I got all 5 books at a sales last month. I’ve never read them before.)

The mechs are the “Black Remnant Command Lance” produced by Catalyst. This is a mercenary unit, and I know that ’cause it’s on the box. According to the Alpha Strike cards, their normal paint scheme is a grey-white camouflage. I’m probably only going to do that on two units, as some of the other options are more interesting.

This is a Cyclops CP-11-H, and I’ve chosen the blue-grey style of the mech piloted by Logan “Headsman” Otho. I have one small image to work off. (I looked but couldn’t find any online images of this mech style… lots of blue Cyclops’, but not Logan’s.)

Initial mid-gray paint all over, then black wash. Blue lake is the main colour, highlighted with a lightened blue, and a very light blue for edging. The grey areas have been touched up in places with gun-metal, and silver. I’d originally planned white/pale grey edging for those sections, but decided to try the pale blue for that too, and I’m happy with the way it looks.

The other three might not be done for a while… we started playing Gloomhaven, and I’m going to paint the characters we are playing in that next. Then maybe another mech, and I have two boxes of Cthulhu: Death may Die here to work on after that.

At last we get to the eight Heroes in the base Descent 2 game.

There are four archetypes in the game, and two heroes for each. Each character has slightly different stats, a Hero ability (a unique skill) and a Heroic Feat (use once/adventure.) In addition, you get to choose from two card decks for each archetype that give you starting equipment and skills/spells. This allows considerable customisation right from the start of the game.

The figures themselves are fairly standard size for fantasy miniatures at about 28mm scale, though they are a little thinner than say Game Workshop. Unlike the much larger monsters, they have considerable detail. This doesn’t work very well on some of them, especially when combined with mold lines. The figures almost exactly match the art on the character cards – which is nice, but sometimes art doesn’t translate well into a 3-dimensional figure. Some of these end up with soft detail (particularly faces – compare Jain and Tomble) and others with just too much happening in a very small space to be clear what’s visible. Tomble, for example, has a knife hilt visible above one boot in the artwork – which shouldn’t have been reproduced on the figure itself. You wouldn’t notice the minute protrusion unless you were looking for it.

Grisban the Thirsty (Warrior) – A dwarf berserker nick-named for his thirst of blood in battle, or beer… no one is sure which.

Syndrael (Warrior) – An exiled elf knight.

Ashrian (Healer) – An elvish shaman from the Whispering Forest. (Weapon is a staff.)

Avric Albright (Healer) – A former human soldier who became a war cleric to help those around him.

Jain Fairwood (Scout) – A human wildlander (ranger) who was wronged deemed a deserter from the army.

Tomble Burrowell (Scout) – A risk-taking gnome thief.

Widow Tarha (Mage) – An orc necromancer who practices in the dark arts.

Leoric of the Book (Mage) – A scholarly human wizard seeking long-forgotten knowledge.

I note that my painting of eyes has been getting worse recently – I’m having more trouble focusing on detail that small (with or without glasses) than previously. It’s more noticeable in the photos than with the actual figures thankfully. A few of the images above don’t look right to me, and I’m worried I clicked a setting that lowered the detail or I’m getting a slight blur off of the varnish. (I took the pictures in a bit of a rush.)

That’s all for Descent – next might be Battletech.